


Surface Tension

by Saucery



Series: Hartwin Stories [22]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Age Difference, Almost porn, Alternate Origin Story, Alternate Universe, Body Worship, Class Differences, Control Issues, Cross-Generation Relationship, Desire, Dirty Thoughts, Flirting, Frottage, Innuendo, Jealousy, Kissing, Loss of Control, Lust, Lust at First Sight, M/M, Muscles, Mutual Pining, Older Man/Younger Man, Opposites Attract, Partial Nudity, Possessive Behavior, Seduction, Sexual Fantasy, Shirtless, Spies & Secret Agents, Strength Kink, Summer, Sweat, Swimming Pools, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 23:00:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6878323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eggsy is a pool boy. Harry lusts after him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surface Tension

* * *

 

Harry had always pictured Merlin’s home as a subterranean steel vault, dozens of meters underground in the coldest, most inhospitable corner of Iceland. The vault would be a technological marvel, protecting giant, buzzing supercomputers on which all the digital information of the world’s intelligence agencies would be stored, encrypted and unhackable by anyone but Merlin.

Perhaps it was a ridiculous fantasy, cartoonish in its exaggeration of Merlin’s own traits—coldness, unapproachability—but Kingsman had never lacked for cartoonish members. Harry himself, with his quintessentially British decorum and a parlor sporting the portrait of a deceased, much-loved dog named Mr. Pickle, was a bit of a caricature. He freely admitted it.

Thus, it came as a shock to him when he was briefed that Merlin not only owned a sunny, roomy, disgustingly luxurious beach house on the coast of Cornwall, but that Merlin was unconcerned about temporarily loaning said house to Harry, unsupervised. No cameras, no monitoring. Nothing. Merlin, who was the professional equivalent of a giant spider in the center of a massive web of interlocking secrets, apparently enjoyed slumming it as an unobserved and unobserving tourist on the English seaside, far away from London’s traitorous, menacing halls of power.

It wasn’t as surprising upon further reflection. Harry reasoned that Merlin, during downtime, likely preferred to live a life diametrically opposed to the life Kingsman forced him to lead. For example, Harry preferred filthy, vigorous sodomy in bed, which was not what most expected from him upon meeting him. Harry repressed his lust; Merlin, seemingly, repressed his trust. Hm. So beneath those mechanical machinations lay a mellow sentimentalist. The mind boggled.

Harry was only in Cornwall on a mission, intercepting an informant from [Mossad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossad). The locals of the coastal village where Merlin dwelled were familiar with Merlin and with Merlin’s “house guests,” assuming that Merlin rented out his summer home during the peak holiday season, while otherwise occupied in London.

Thus, the most unobtrusive method of infiltrating that community—and of being seen coincidentally sipping coffee in a beachside café with a fellow sightseer from Israel—was to pose as the newest in a slew of vacationists who made Merlin’s residence even more innocuous by making it among the many such residences dotting the coast.

Merlin had said he wouldn’t be discomfited by Harry being in his territory, if Harry promptly forgot about where it was. It was fortunate for them both that the Kingsmen were just as skilled at forgetting as they were at remembering. Indeed, selective forgetfulness was essential for their survival.

It was the height of noon when Harry crossed the unfenced, rather gargantuan front lawn of Merlin’s house, which resembled a tastefully manicured golf course, with just enough flowers to give it a soul. Under the unrelenting beating of the sun, the clouds overhead had been kneaded into flat, pale, doughy circles, and Harry was overheated in his suit. The image of Merlin lounging around on the lawn in a loose Hawaiian shirt made Harry snort.

The front door of the blindingly white mansion swung inwards—unlocked—and Harry frowned. Merlin might prefer not having a security system, but surely a simple lock was necessary, at minimum. Who had unlocked it?

Harry reached for the slim shape of his pistol, in its even slimmer holster where it was concealed beneath the fall of Harry’s suit. He didn’t withdraw it, but he reminded himself that it was there.

An inspection of the house didn’t uncover any signs of a break-in, from the undisturbed dove-grey throws over the satiny sofas to the miniature vases of exotic cacti. As Harry moved through the house and into the backyard, he noted the faint smell of chlorine that was probably emanating from a swimming pool, and the humming of a low, musical, masculine voice.

Harry crept around the Doric pillar beyond which a sliding glass door was ajar, welcoming in a warm breeze that was more stifling than invigorating. He saw…

Well, he wasn’t entirely certain what he saw, for a moment, because only a mirage or a hallucination could be so beautiful. It couldn’t be a real human being. And yet, there it was, a body so pornographically perfect that everything just _stopped_ , from Harry’s heart to Harry’s brain to, quite possibly, time itself.

There was a boy of no more than twenty on Merlin’s paved deck, on the far side of the pool whose existence Harry had guessed at. He was facing the house, T-shirt discarded on the ground, clad in nothing but swim-shorts that were so sodden with sweat that they clung to slender-but-powerful thighs. Sweat trickled down an equally powerful chest, the pectorals young and firm, the nipples pink and hard and gleaming, like pearls. A square, smooth jaw without a hint of stubble accentuated unexpectedly lovely features, features that were somehow both sweet and mulish, with an oddly stubborn charm.

And then there were the eyes, a sea-blue so rich that they arrested Harry even from a distance, and the mouth, which promised to be as hot and lush as a jungle orchid, full and red and soft.

It was—

The vision, in all its separate, exquisite details, coalesced into a shot of desire as heady as a shot of vodka. It flashed within Harry and ate through him like fire through paper, reducing him to ash.

The fact that the lad was holding a net and was cleaning the pool, in steady, practiced motions that made his biceps bunch distractingly, was neither here nor there. Was this a secret of Merlin’s, too? A boy-toy? A sordid affair with a paid catamite?

“Like what you see?”

Harry jumped. The boy was gazing directly at him, a knowing slyness curling that obscene mouth.

“So you’re Mr. M’s new guest. You’re wondering if he fucks me, aren’t you? Hell, you look like you wanna do it, yourself.”

“You’re—”

“I’m Eggsy. The pool boy. And the gardener. And the cleaner. But not the bed-slave, or whatever it is you’re imagining.”

“That was…” Harry cleared his throat. “That was uncouth of me, spying on you unannounced. But I was, I daresay, justifiably concerned about a potential burglar having broken into the premises. Kindly permit me to contact the landlord and confirm that you are who you say you are.”

Eggsy grinned. “Suspicious, huh? Just like Mr. M is. Go ahead.”

Harry took out his mobile phone and sent a text message to Merlin: _Have you taken to harboring Greek gods, lately? Apollo, in particular?_

Almost instantaneously, Merlin responded: _Ah. So you’ve met the groundskeeper._

_Groundskeeper? He’s Eros incarnate._

_Apollo, and now Eros? Contain yourself, Galahad. This is not your Holy Grail. And even if it were, I would ask you not to dip your wick in it. He’s the only native of Cornwall I’ve hired that works for me without asking inconvenient questions. Stop bothering me and don’t, for the love of all that is decent, seduce the help. Or allow the help to seduce you._

And that was that.

When Harry re-pocketed his phone, “the help,” as it were, was studying him speculatively. Eggsy had hooked a thumb in the waistband of his sinfully tiny shorts, causing them to dip invitingly past a hip-bone, revealing that Eggsy’s lack of a happy trail continued southward.

Heavens. Was the boy _shaved_ , down there? Velveteen and vulnerable?

If Harry weren’t an agent trained to maintain his composure even in the face of death itself, that epiphany about the state of Eggsy’s privates would have ruined him. Instead, he calmly set aside his suitcase of clothes, and held his right hand out to be shaken.

Eggsy ambled over to shake it, his grip strong and callused and distressingly intimate, not least because of how Eggsy didn’t relinquish Harry’s hand for a fraction of a second longer than strictly necessary.  

“You’re not so bad, yourself,” Eggsy said, and Harry hoped his flush was explainable as a reaction to the blistering weather, as opposed to a reaction to Eggsy’s distinctly carnal compliment, or to Eggsy’s shirtless proximity. “Most of Mr. M’s guests are… They’re normal. Not like Mr. M. But you’re his sort, aren’t you? His sort, but more…” Eggsy bit his lower lip, neatly derailing the backstory Harry was attempting to construct in his mind. “Built.” Eggsy’s eyelids dipped lazily. “My, what broad shoulders you have, Papa Wolf.”

Hadn’t Merlin said that Eggsy didn’t ask inconvenient questions? Or make inconvenient observations? Even so, Eggsy was clearly clever enough to perceive that Merlin was a different “sort,” not an ordinary civilian, and that Harry wasn’t ordinary, either.

The boy was dangerous. And not merely to Harry’s libido.

Thus, Harry said, as drolly as he could, “All this wolf wants is to doze off in his den, especially after his grueling journey to Cornwall. I shan’t interrupt you. Carry on. All I’m here to do is sleep and eat. That’s why it’s called a holiday, after all.”

Eggsy… pursed his lips in what Harry refused to think of as a pout, for the sake of his own sanity. “You wouldn’t be interrupting. Say, why don’t you take a swim? The water’s cool. It’ll be a relief.”

“No, thank you,” Harry said distantly, retreating into the house and assuring himself that it wasn’t a cowardly retreat, but a tactical one. “I’m going to the bedroom. Please leave after you’ve finished your work.”

Eggsy’s eyes widened innocently. “But part of my work is making Mr. M’s guests comfortable. I could make you very, very comfortable.”

Did the brat never give up? “That wasn’t what the landlord said your job was.”

“I’ve discovered a fresh passion for my duties.”

“Very admirable of you. Good day.”

So saying, Harry fled.

No. Retreated. Tactically.

It proved to be the first of many retreats, as Harry ventured out to drink iced coffee at the aforementioned café, staring peacefully into the distance, patiently waiting for his Mossad contact to turn up. Everyday, he hoped that the boy would have left in his absence, without further flirtations, but somehow, Eggsy contrived to be there no matter when Harry returned.

Moreover, Eggsy contrived to expose his damnably flawless flesh at every available opportunity, also making _himself_ obviously available. Eggsy trimmed the hedges while clad in a tank top that stuck to his torso in damp, near-transparent lines, clinging to a six-pack that flexed when Eggsy wheeled the wheelbarrow full of trimmings away, ostensibly to compost them.

And that wasn’t all. Eggsy transformed his domestic tasks into exercises in perverse exhibitionism, whether it was bending over to put his round arse on display, or squeezing a wet rag so that droplets slid down his sculpted calves, or drinking beer from Merlin’s fridge and managing to spill it in foamy, creamy rivulets that ran along his bobbing Adam’s apple.

Eggsy dusted the furniture whenever Harry happened to be using it, trailing ticklish feather dusters up Harry’s arm supposedly by mistake, ignoring Harry’s glares. Eggsy’s shirt magically vanished at regular intervals, allegedly because of the sweltering climate, and his fingertips swept across his sternum as if to wipe away beads of perspiration. After an hour of housework, Eggsy puffed out tired breaths that resembled sighs of arousal too closely for them to be anything but deliberately staged performances.

What manner of test was this? Was Merlin running a psychological evaluation? If he was, then Harry was failing it miserably.

After a week, Harry was at his wits’ end. He was hard nearly constantly, feverishly preoccupied with daydreams about Eggsy even when visiting the café. It was embarrassing. Humiliating. Unprofessional. Eggsy’s sleekly muscled figure flickered like a flame in the darkness of Harry’s prolific imagination, folded in half and rutted into until that infuriating impudence was fucked right out of the boy. Sometimes, the Eggsy that Harry envisioned was face-down, sobbing Harry’s name and drooling slackly into a pillow, his back rippling with every thrust.

And it wasn’t, in spite of appearances, about sex. Or not just about sex.

Harry wanted Eggsy to submit.

That’s what it was. Harry wanted that spirited playfulness to fracture into earnest begging, wanted those suggestive words to dissolve into wanton, needy gasps. Harry wanted to take what was on offer and _wreck_ it, make it so that no other man would ever have Eggsy again, that no other man would inspire that downright evil smirk in Eggsy, that blatant provocation.

Harry wanted to possess Eggsy.

But possession was impossible for Harry, as it was for all Kingsmen. Possession required durability, and as a spy, durability was out of the question. Not unless it was with another spy.

Another…

No. Harry wasn’t the sort of Kingsman who recruited his bedmates. And Eggsy wasn’t even his bedmate. Not yet.

Not ever.

The silent storm that had been brewing between them—the electric friction of resistance versus seduction—broke on a Thursday evening, when Harry got back to Merlin’s house after finally making contact with Aaron from Israel.

At last, Harry’s mission was going according to plan. With no childish temptations to bedevil him.

But then he saw Eggsy scowling at him. Not leering as Eggsy habitually was, smugly relaxed and loose-limbed and radiating raw sexuality. This was Eggsy being angry, but before Harry could decipher that anger, Eggsy deciphered it for him.

“So that’s why, is it?” Eggsy demanded.

“What’s why?” Harry feigned unconcern.

“Why you won’t touch me. Because you’ve got a bloke, is that it? A foreign boyfriend, very nice. Sexy accent and all. I spotted the two of you chatting away like lovebirds, on my way here.” Eggsy’s hands balled into fists, and he raised his chin defiantly. “Bet he’s not as good at giving head as I am, though.”

“Eggsy.” Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not—” No, wait, this was precisely what he’d been seeking. An exit. Plausible deniability. A conclusion to this farce of a… it wasn’t even a courtship, was it? “This isn’t a competition.”

“Isn’t it? Because it sodding well feels like it.” Eggsy strode up to him, narrow-eyed and determined, and with a dawning horror, Harry saw Eggsy’s knees beginning to buckle. “I’ll show you…”

“ _No_.” Harry was so desperate to stop Eggsy from kneeling—to stop Eggsy from doing something Harry couldn’t resist—that he ended up grabbing Eggsy’s shoulders and slamming him against the wall. Holding him up. Holding him still.

At the jarring impact, air escaped Eggsy in a rush. He gaped at Harry in disbelief.

Probably because Harry just kept holding him there, suddenly rendered speechless by the feeling of Eggsy against him, the angles of that infernal body slotting against his as naturally as he’d imagined.

“Oh,” Eggsy was saying, “ _oh_ ,” as if at a revelation, and then he was moaning, and it wasn’t until Harry noticed he was rocking his hips into Eggsy’s that he understood why.

Harry knew, intellectually, that he should step away. But he couldn’t make his feet budge, and he couldn’t prevent his teeth from closing on the fluttering pulse-point at the base of Eggsy’s neck, between delicate clavicles that he couldn’t cease biting, either.

Eggsy was making lost, urgent noises that sharpened into whines at Harry’s vicious, stinging bites, at the slow, rhythmic grind of Harry’s clothed erection against his. Eggsy’s thighs had fallen open, just letting Harry _take_ , and the surrender inherent in that made Harry groan, starved and feral. Eggsy shivered as Harry licked a searing stripe up to his ear. “Your... That man isn’t your boyfriend, is he?”

“No,” Harry growled. “He isn’t.”

“Oh,” repeated Eggsy, so quietly that Harry’s heart juddered, like the wooden hull of an old warship creaking amidst roiling waves.

“You would’ve won anyway,” Harry gritted out. “You little _demon_ —”

“I’m not little,” Eggsy groused, but he was smiling, small and startlingly shy, and—

When Harry caved in and kissed that smile, his gut lurched with an emotion that bore an alarming resemblance to fear. He realized that, despite his best efforts, he’d become one of those doddering, senile, simpering fools who fell for pretty young things and asked Kingsman to recruit their lovers, so that they could live and die together. So that they could bandage each other’s wounds after missions, and give solace to each other in strange hotel beds, whispering sweet nothings as twilight waned into night...

“You’ve enchanted me,” Harry slurred against the downy curve of Eggsy’s cheek. Eggsy quivered, and Harry continued, hoarsely, “I’m going to keep you.”

It was intended to be a threat, but given how Eggsy arched and shuddered, it didn’t frighten him at all.

Brave boy. Terrifying boy.

“K-keep me,” Eggsy stuttered, wrapping his arms around Harry as if for reassurance, so Harry kissed him again and again, the statement that was once a threat now a promise, a comfort.

“I will,” Harry said, and found that he meant it. “I will.”

 

* * *

**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Like my writing? Want updates and sneak previews? Follow me on [Tumblr](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/)! I also run a blog for my [original gay fiction](http://dominiquefrost.tumblr.com/).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Surface Tension (Podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6989896) by [auroreanrave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroreanrave/pseuds/auroreanrave)




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